Besides the research papers which I find to be more difficult, some of these assignments I actually somewhat am excited about. One of the things we’re supposed to for our Multicultural Counseling class is write a 5-page essay on an Ethnographic Observation experience. We are to show up in a place that gives us the experience of “other”. It also cannot be a place where we would be in a position of power. All of this needs to be approved by our professor. I first asked if I could visit the local public high school. She said if I was visiting a public high school in Chicago that might work, but in a school around here I would have a position of power.

So then I started looking to see if there were any nearby monasteries or convents. I found an event that is happening next weekend at a local convent in Springfield. It is an opportunity for single Catholic women ages 21-45 to come and see what the sister life is like. My professor said this event would work as long as they would be okay with me coming. The event organizer said there was only one other woman who is registered so far and that it would be okay if I came.

For this same class we watched a movie called The Color of Fear. It was a gathering of men including white but mostly non-white men. During the movie there was a heated exchange between one of the black men and one of the white men. The black man had spent a significant amount of time trying to explain to the white man the way the white man benefits from being white, as well as the black man’s pains that come from the color of his skin. The white man kept trying to reassure the black man that he as a white man did not look down on the black man for being black. He didn’t see himself as having any unfair advantages or positions of power because he was white. “I see you as human”, he kept saying, “there is no difference between us”.

This enraged the black man. And then I learned something. An attitude that I had always thought was one of respect, the idea that “you are no different from me”, is one that the other can find deeply hurtful and inaccurate. The black man wasn’t satisfied with simply being human. He wanted to be more than that but also never anything less. He wanted to be seen for who he was and not have differences swept under the rug by well-meaning generalizations like “human”. I’d never heard anyone say that before.

So while I found myself empathizing greatly with the white man, and felt like he was being unfairly ganged up on, I could also dimly see the point of the other man who felt like being called and seen as human was a devaluing of his identity and status and not an elevation of it. He wanted people to see his color, because to him his color meant something about his life and existence. And so I grew in my compassion, for the black man, for the white man, and for every other man who never meant to misunderstand.